Although I had read Mann's Doctor Faustus in the H. T. Lowe-Porter translation many years ago, I have wanted to read the Woods translation ever since it was published almost twenty-five years ago. However, I am print-disabled and can no longer read regular print text for any sustained period of time. Another option was to read Doctor Faustus in the original, but alas, my German is even more challenged than my vision. Over the years, I sent numerous emails to the publisher asking for an ebook version which I could purchase, but to no avail. Therefore, I was elated to find this book on Internet Archive.

I am enormously grateful to the person who uploaded this translation of Doctor Faustus. As with any OCR digital copy, there are typos in the digital text, so it helps to have a print copy to which you can refer if the ebook becomes mystifying. In chapter VIII during Kretzschmar's explication of Beethoven's C minor piano sonata, in the ebook he says "After the initial G, it takes on a G-sharp before the D...." The text reads, "After an initial C, it takes on a C-sharp before the D....." The OCR was also apparently challenged by umlauts: Leverkühn has become Leverkiihn. These typos didn't bother me at all; in fact they became a sort of game for me and endearing because they reminded me of the kindness of the person who had uploaded this book.

It helps to have some knowledge of music to read Doctor Faustus. YouTube has good performances of many of the pieces to which the text refers -- check out Maurizio Pollini's 1977 performance of op. 111.